Walking Thin Lines
by Sonsasu The Gray Dragon
Summary: To aid my uncle, I became his test subject. Unfortunately, his drug comes with very unusual side effects. Side effects...that yautja have a hard time resisting.
1. The Injection

**Walking Thin Lines**

**By, Sonsasu**

**Episode One**

"**The Injection"**

* * *

Worrying on my lower lip, I held out an arm, "I'm not sure if this is a good idea, uncle Tarus…"

A middle-aged man with short oiled back salt and pepper hair glanced up, low-rimmed glasses sliding down his aquiline nose. He offered a wide smile, revealing teeth.

"Come now, Robin, this is for the good of science and trade with the Yautja, so keep a stiff upper lip now."

Looking away so I wouldn't have to witness the syringe inching closer, I barely felt the pierce of cold metal.

"See? That wasn't so bad, dear."

A sharp glare cut off any other sentences.

Dingy blue liquid slowly disappeared, creeping down the thin needle, and invading the lone vain it was buried inside. The substance in question was an experimental modifier to simulate the sensitivity of olfaction in an outside party, provoking a stronger response to the natural secretion of odors.

Unknown to the- questionably- all-powerful human government, Tarus, in his secret labs, had worked on this for over six_ long _years, personally enduring the numerous tests for fear of discovery. The man already knew what possible outcomes this drug might lead toward, and wanted it for a pure purpose, its intended role not to stray and become twisted for schemes incubated in political grabs for power.

Made to influence a sense of tranquillity in the otherwise highly aggressive humanoid species, Yautja, its designated function was to assist in easing the untrusting race to loosen their obstinate negotiation style with our ambassadors. A ploy like that might appear less-than-noble with such an advantage, but this could apply a needed staunch on their customs for slavery on other races.

To not stir instant notice and bring about a cataclysmic result, the changes were to shift from one, to several subtle phases before assuming full potency, and then intermix with the individual's natural smell with a constant, steady output.

As you might have guessed, I asked questions after Tarus presented his request, a good many, and being a talkative egghead, he happily shared.

The first degree, being an almost innocent fragrance to humans, was the bridge so to speak, mandatory for soothing a Yautja, before ultimately succeeding onto the second cycle of change. Unusual consequences, unfortunately, went hand-in-hand with the secondary point. It might include a gender-based _use_, and that was a problem.

Female Predators dwelt, and governed over their home world, and Tarus didn't possess a social station there to request contact with even a lower status female. There was a possibility, since they did venture out for hunts, but it does not suggest to common sense to toss one's self into their path for a chat. Done to maintain alpha dominance over their clans and not for mating rights, the males were the ones who resided on the interracial Space Stations, and they did the brunt of the business with humans.

My uncle, when further pressed, said he felt content, and that this was presently a good thing. A nine-foot tall female, aroused, or if emotions bent her toward aggression, was far too risky for his good health. I'd agreed with him on that matter, and he, as if never straying from our topic, continued then with the undulation of his life, mapping out the many paths his drug had taken him.

After the first year of his elating revelation, he'd believed it safe enough to test.

Twenty minutes passed after the injection, which was an adequate amount of time for him to depart his home. Upon exit from the transporter, every male Yautja in a one-mile radius had flocked to him, severely…stimulated. You never can quite conceive how swift a man takes flight when given the right prompt, the incentive being tireless hunters in pursuit. Dogged all the way through the Blue Hall Space Station, it was sheer luck that one hour later, gasping for breath, jelly-limbed, and huddled in the fetal position, that his body's resistance forced it to fade.

He didn't say on what happened with the Predators, though.

Uncle Tarus packed up his delicates and moved with the help of an underworld association after his too-public error.

Another year in hiding would pass where he discovered hormones held a steeper link into his scent experiment than he'd originally believed, thus he gambled one more test.

Let's just say it didn't go as planed. Although it had the correct effect in soothing the explosive tempers, it made them a bit too, uh, emotional. Meaning they lost control of their softer feelings. This sent them into an abyss-like depression, turning the galaxy's most deadly being into the equivalence of crying toddlers.

It was worse when the victims of the drug's influence cuddled random people…

In addition to this misery of mounting failures, he had to keep the nosy government from suspicion. He constantly relocated to different space stations, taking every precaution to avoid detection. Two more unsuccessful years of quiet devotion to his goal, and three more dwellings abandoned, came and went, dragging Tarus closer to surrendering to his immense stress load. Yet like every great idea, desperate mistakes, sometimes leads to greater success.

During the fifth year, he found a minor, near unnoticeable flaw in the build required for changing the natural scents excreted from the human body. Repairing this, he encountered one final complication. It _still_ activated the raging libidos of Yautja…while soothing their tempers when _he_ used it. In turn, it contributed to a new query, injecting the opposite sex.

Distinct hormones found solely in females, as he explained to me, _might_ provoke dissimilar, side-effect free results.

At first, he could not convince me, not after the regaling of past accounts, and foolishly revealing how many times he had encountered _unforeseen_ circumstances when using the experiment. Nevertheless, considering his desperation, and the fact he was the only _living_ family I had left, he managed to peak my interest at the mention of paying credits. I agreed partly because of needing the money, and yet any sense of greed was nowhere near ready to overcome self-preservation.

No, I accepted out of affection for my uncle, strained as it was. His relief, though concealed, still allowed the notice of a slight shift in his once tense posture and the relieved downfall of his eyelids to rest over jade green eyes, three weeks ago.

"You're absolutely certain this will work, I mean make the Predators more…err, relaxed?"

Using a small wad of cotton he handed me to press against the bleeding pinprick, I sighed. The pale, almost bleached white skinned man moved away, setting various equipment pieces back in their proper places, his hands working silent and efficiently.

"Rest assured; have I ever failed you? On second thought, don't answer that."

Even though his back was turned, he always happened to know when I was going to say something smart-assed. I shut my mouth, an audible click filling the relatively soundless room. Rising from the chair set against a cheerless gray wall, I cast the used material into a mini wastebin located beneath his expensive looking reddish wood desk.

I flexed icy fingers in vain hope to ignore the trivial ache forming in my left arm. Observing Tarus scribble something in his handheld computer taken from a pocket, I absentmindedly listened to him mumble something about groceries…

"Exactly what does this do?"

He glanced over his narrow shoulder, a curious scowl of thought marring his mildly aged features.

"From the many times I tested it; the shifting of your scent creates…reactions in Yautja."

Turning away, he walked over to a towering bookshelf standing several feet to the right of my previous, heat-stealing seat. His slender fingers drifted over multiple spines of black skinned volumes, some thicker than the next. Each appeared painfully similar to me. None bore titles, not even a number to distinguish the hundreds of personal references put together over sleepless and difficult years of toil.

It was rare to find paper bound books; pretty much everyone had ceased using them in favor for the simpler data-folios; the death of Earth having injured the human foundation of using natural resources.

At mid shelf, he paused. My uncle withdrew a thin silver hued notebook that I hadn't noticed until now. He flipped it open, perusing through its white pages and making occasional sounds acquainted with thinking.

"This should explain the general of what you need to know…and more or less avoid."

He held the eight-inch volume out to me.

"Avoid…?"

I accepted the surprisingly weighted piece, and looked down to the page he'd parted it to, before reading his complexly scrabbled writing aloud.

"…such as fear and or anxiety invoke the reaction to verbally console via particular throat utterances and or comfort-" I halted, struggling to interpret and make certain my eyes weren't deceiving me, "…physically?"

I lifted blue eyes, a black brow arched.

A tightly lipped smile was my answer. "They _are_ a curious species, Robin."

Snapping the foreboding item shut, before I relented to a quiet sigh of distorted patience, I forced the nagging worms of doubt to bury their wiggly selves at my back of my mind for later examination.

"When does this take effect again?"

Tarus glanced at his mini computer, "twenty minutes from now, ample time to head home and change."

That gained my attention. "Change? Change for what exactly?"

His fingers laced behind his back, followed by a near-innocent blink. Ah crap, he suddenly reminded me of young boy preparing to execute a deviant plan.

"You've heard of the Roaring Gecko, yes?" His wide smile increased around the edges when I visibly stiffened.

"Of course." Why did I feel like I was walking into a trap? "Practically no one can get in, the Predator bouncers-" a solid lump of dread twisted my stomach into a knot.

"Indeed, my dear."

* * *

**-Disclaimer-**

**Sonsasu the Winter Dragon owns nothing of Predators**

**-Claimer-**

**©2007 Sonsasu the Winter Dragon owns Robin, Tarus, the plot and the world settings**


	2. Why Not To Charm Predators

**Walking Thin Lines**

**By, Sonsasu**

**Episode Two**

"**Why not to charm Predators"**

* * *

Leaning against the cold, reflective silvery surface of the transporter's walls, I brushed aside stray locks of black hair impeding my view, pushing them to imprisonment behind the curves of my ears. One of the fang-like bangs I preferred to maintain at a longer length then its twin glided before my left eye. Immediately, I snagged the tip dyed in scarlet, punishing it with an accusing glare for daring to try to repeat an earlier transgression. I _really_ needed to stop playing the lazy Revaeb Bug and just cut off the darn things…they were becoming annoying.

Releasing my momentary item of woe, the urge for another loud sigh tickled the back of my throat.

I restrained it this time, choosing instead to reach down and withdraw the slim book given to me by my uncle, out of one of the various pockets sewn, and scattered along the sides of my baggy cameo pants. Flipping it open to a random segment, mainly to help trounce the passage of time it took for the pod to arrive at my apartment complex, I stared at the scribbled writing.

"…in taking proper precautions to avoid skin-to-skin contact excited, or if under extreme stress due to situations resulting from emotional, and or extraordinary mental pressure?"

I mumbled the words softly, enduring the chafing assault of bafflement as my eyes hastened to different points of reference on the page. Each collection of garbled, but closely spaced commentaries I skimmed over seemed interested only in addressing an earlier mention from the book.

I grunted.

Though blindly attempting to make sense by groping for information like a lecherous Yeknom satisfied an impatient tendency, further reading, _unfortunately_, required me to know what Tarus's squiggles meant. Skipping several pages ahead, and after skittering the pieces of paper without attaining what I desired, repeated the process, hoping to locate the first entry of my random choice.

A low, but cheerful ding announced my arrival to the residential floors of the Zero Nine Space Station.

Shaken from the rapid scanning of scarcely legible bits of script, I did not bother to evaluate my path, instead I simply strode out, nose remaining buried in the volume. Still searching, my brain failed to register the giant shadow looming over me, eclipsing my smaller frame…until it happened.

Thud!

My face greeted an organic obstacle made of warm, unyielding muscle.

With unrestricted speed and not expecting to encounter resistance to a once believed empty route, it was enough of a shock to make me stumble backwards in a very ungraceful manner, while at the same time releasing an extremely intelligent noise of, "Ahk!" My date with gravity would have continued as the world tilted, but two hands seized me, becoming the moorings that kept my unbalanced derriere from kissing the floor.

Suddenly secured from fate, my new and unique position I discovered, also gave a novel appreciation for a male body.

Like a tile with adhesive, my torso, mainly a pair of squished breasts, which felt like pancakes on my chest, found themselves flat against the owner of a hard, rippling eight-pack. I lacked the height to reach much higher. Open mouthed like an Ecapsiune Space Fish introduced to oxygen, and wide eyed like the Vogoou Larva Insect that infested lower sections of most traveling ships, I hung in his grasp, stunned as to who it was I beheld.

"Vo'kafi!"

The Yautja offered a faint growl, and I experienced the sinfully delightful sensation from the vibrations roving through him as a result. To any other unacquainted with their ferocious species, such a sound might indeed demonstrate a radiation of aggression. In truth, it was just a simpler version of Predator amusement, aside from trilling.

"You are unharmed?" Rough and halting, as if forced, then dragged to liberation of his throat, the gruff English drew a goofy smile from me. "It's all good, sorry for running into you like that, I was, erm, I wasn't paying attention...you know, thinking."

In a careless display of inhuman strength, he righted my one-hundred and eighty three pound self to my former standing position. Palms still cradling ticklish ribs with long fingers splayed, curled around my back, I, provoked by the moment, sympathized with what toys suffered through when tormented by children.

"Oomans always are thinking."

Every syllable seemed pronounced with a harsh, grating edge, but I doubted it had anything to do with agitation.

"Er, thanks for the save, I-"

The sentence trailed off when fingers flexed and their surfaces pressed upon something that was not air, nor the face of a book. At the crooks of his much larger forearms, resting so comfortably, were my own hands. This tidbit of realization raced to my brain, and I released him instantly.

Heat slithered across my cheeks, painting the skin with the harsh sting of a blush.

Vo'kafi relinquished his support, however, and I am passing this off as purely imagination, but I would have sworn he did so with a lingering caress to the sides of my breasts as his clawed hands retreated. Silence, thick as molasses, and filled with a tight tension I refused to touch with a ten-foot pole, descended to molest my awareness with embarrassment. I cleared my throat, if just to lift the heavy cloak of soundless discomfort.

"I…uh-"

Under the calculating regard of his stare, coming from features so foreign from my human ones, I barely contained and swept aside the urge to fidget. His eyes, an amber gold, like the warm hue of Yeknom honey, never strayed from my gaze. Personal judgment interfered with the impulse to relieve myself of such an unwavering magnitude of intensity by looking away. If I averted my sight, it would mean, at least to him and his customs, submission. However, a staring contest is one thing that would most certainly have a finish engulfed in the flames of failure.

Thus, I pulled a fast one.

I shut my eyes while unveiling a cheesy, tooth filled grin, tilting my head sideways, and sending a hand to message the back of my neck.

It was a draw.

Yet the image etched in the archive of my brain dragged out a sigh coupled with the yearning rivaling a love struck teenager over a first crush. Even though his skin shading was common to a fair number of his race, a molted yellow, like dried Neolg mustard, and a dark swamp-like green, interrupted with splatters of inky ebony from his back, I still found him fascinating to observe.

His foreign facial appearance alone was enough to ensnare my natural artistic nature.

Four crablike mandibles immediately drew the wondering eye, each flexible appendage tipped with a deadly tusk, the ivory surfaces etched with the lines of flowing runes. Better yet, hidden within those independently twitching extremities, which could express their every mood, unblemished fangs adorned the exposed dark pink gums of his inner mouth, upper and lower canines longer than my middle finger. Moreover, if only to increase the exquisite alien strangeness, black, waist length dreadlocks framed his massive skull, and located directly center, where a nose _should_ have rested, or at least nostrils slits, a flat, hard ridge sat instead.

Of course ogling him, I doubted, would receive a pleasant reaction.

From beneath his two expressive, boney eyebrows, set forward like a natural earthbound hunter, remarkably solemn eyes gave me an equal examination. Anyway, being a towering seven feet some odd inches, wrapped in massive, tight slabs of indefatigable muscle, as was per the norm of his kind, I entertained an obscene, but brief image of him posing nude for one of my stray art projects, all those ebon dreadlocks framing his reclining body…

A sharp inhale from the hunter incited a spike of panic to impale my beating heart. I had nearly forgotten about the injection! It wouldn't take effect until later, but it, more or less, was lethargically warming up to a soon to be full throttle.

Without opening my eyes to notice the shift in Vo'kafi, and not allowing my now stiff smile to dim, I quickly bent down. Using my once lifted hand, I collected the fallen notebook that had struck my foot, which lady-fortunate, offering a merciful boon, saw fit to keep it closed after hitting the floor, and shot back up.

"I have to get going, I'm supposed to meet with someone in a bit, and need to get ready…"

The somber Yautja slightly cocked his head, and in a stoic act of agreement, he gave a slender inclination of a nod. He stepped his greater bulk to the side, and I, slow as a Neolg snail, crept past him. Partly free of his overwhelming aura, I had gone several feet when a sensation assailed, and startled me. The feathery touch of several razor sharp tips, ghosted over the finer hairs decorating the back of my neck, past the rubbery rim of my vest, where I, bewildered in the slow decay of the moment, lost all feeling of contact when it drifted between my shoulder blades.

Immediately I stopped, and turned.

I was too late.

Already inside the transporter, with its bowed door closing, I only caught the amber gold of a single eye, glinting with a vividness that set my spine to rattle with a chill, right before his appearance was severed. The egg shaped pod shot downward, disappearing in a flash, before the sliding walls activated, concealing the now hollow spot of the traveling system. Involuntarily, I sought the area his cold talons had teased.

When in mid-motion, I stopped, an inkling of concern bleeding into my thoughts.

Was this one of the consequences I would suffer? Had this situation arisen, and then developed because of the shot?

No, not possible, it was not in effect, yet…

After all, Vo'kafi was my neighbor, living six rooms down from my own. I saw him just about every day.

A smile and a wave here or the occasional hello there was the usual occurrences with him. I had eaten lunch with the hunter in the vast mall at the northern section of the Zero Nine Space Station. Hell, I even helped him with his English during those meals! He may have merely embellished a more relaxed sense with my presence. Physical contact was a normal and fundamental interaction between Yautja and their companions. Yes, that was more likely the reason.

Rewarded with the thin discernment, it soothed my concerns to a tolerable level. I moistened my strangely dry lips, and hesitantly lowered my arm. In the renewed wash of reality, my head swiveled back and forth.

Long halls, interrupted only with the black outlines of thresholds and their entry pads, I found myself utterly, and gratefully alone. Built from a metal maintained at an impossible cleanliness, and colored with the kind of stark white you would find in a hospice, its two soundless corridors, opposite of each other, smelt of something moist, almost sweet, like the mellowed scent of a high-class perfume.

I sighed.

There was little time to dwell, and much less left now to change. "Crap…"

* * *

**-Disclaimer-**

**Sonsasu the Winter Dragon owns nothing of Predators**

**-Claimer-**

**©2007 Sonsasu the Winter Dragon owns Robin, Tarus, Vo'kafi, the plot and the world settings**

* * *

**A.N.**

**The Predator's name pronunciation is**

**Vo-Ka-****Fa**


End file.
